Ralph Torrie Nomination Speech 2010 by NQW Greens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Ralph Torrie of Cobourg was nominated as the Green Party candidate for the Northumberland/Quinte West Federal Green Party at a nomination meeting in Cobourg last night (October 29th).

Congratulations, Ralph! The Northumberland/Quinte West riding is lucky to have you representing the Green Party in the (upcoming?) elections!

About Ralph

Ralph is an expert in the field of energy and environment and has over 30 years of entrepreneurial and consulting experience that includes hundreds of initiatives in research, business development, and advocacy. Combining visionary thinking with rigorous analysis he has made original and important contributions in the field of sustainable development. Ralph led or contributed to numerous analyses of the technological and economic potential for energy efficiency on Canadian energy demands. The methods he invented for greenhouse gas and air pollution reduction strategies are used throughout the world. The software he developed at Torrie Smith Associates has been translated into several languages and is used by more than 300 municipalities, companies and institutions on five continents.

In the mid-1980’s he served as the assistant coordinator of the Energy Research Group of the United Nations University and the International Development Research Centre. In the late 1980’s he was part of a group of environmental analysts and advocates that helped define the sustainable development agenda that has become the focus of national and international policy. He represented peace, environment and international development NGO’s before the hearings of the World Commission on Environment and Development and his testimony on the connections between environment, poverty and security is quoted in the Commission’s final report, Our Common Future.

Ralph has numerous publications, is on the editorial board of Alternatives Magazine, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Humber College Sustainable Energy and Building Technology Program. In 2002 he received the Canadian Environment Silver Award for his work with local governments on climate change.

Ralph was the federal Green Party candidate in Northumberland Quinte West in the 2008 election, an election in which the local Green Party nearly doubled its vote over the previous election, even as the number of votes cast for all the other parties declined.

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Ralph is the third of nine children and grew up in Northumberland/Quinte West, attending public and secondary school here. He and his wife Judy returned to the area six years ago to help care for his mother and have become active members of the community. Ralph is a Board member of Beyond the Blue Box and is a founding member of Citizens for a Sustainable Cobourg. He has a B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo and has done pioneering work in Canada and internationally in the field of environmentally sustainable energy strategies for companies and governments. Judy is originally from Sault Ste. Marie and also graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in environmental studies. They have two adult children&emdash!a daughter Alison who is an archaeologist and lives in Cobourg, and a son Jake who has recently returned to university to pursue a second degree in business administration.

Ralph has broad social interests. While he graduated with a Bsc in Physics from the University of Waterloo, he also focused on peace studies and organized the first of what has become an annual peace conference at the university.

Ralph likes country and classical music, cycling in the Northumberland Hills, and participating in trivia nights at the Beamish in Port Hope.